The present invention relates to an improvement, in a method and device for power generation by utilizing the energy of a phenomenon of artificially generated whirlwind, to accomplish a high efficiency of energy utilization.
There was already made an attempt for power generation in which the same phenomenon as a whirlwind occurring in nature was artificially generated and a turbine was driven by utilizing the rotating energy of the gas flow thereof.
The inventor previously proposed (Japanese Patent Kokai No. 6-147098), as a device for realizing this attempt, a device comprising a cylinder hermetically sealing a gas for heat exchange, a cooling pipe installed within the aforementioned cylinder in the axial direction to which a fluid for cooling was introduced from an end in the axial direction, a heating pipe installed within the aforementioned cylinder in the axial direction, to which a fluid for heating was introduced from the other end in the axial direction, a cooling flow channel for cooling of the gas in the form of a spiral pipe installed in contact with the circumference of the aforementioned cooling pipe, a heating flow channel for heating of the gas in the form of a spiral pipe installed in contact with the circumference of the aforementioned heating pipe and opening at both ends to produce a flow of the gas, a fan installed at least one of the outlet and inlet openings of the aforementioned cooling flow channel and heating flow channel and an output shaft rotating jointly with this fan, in which the gas heated in the heating flow channel was introduced on one hand into the cooling flow channel and the gas cooled in the cooling flow channel was introduced on the other hand into the heating flow channel to generate convection of the gas circulating in a spiral movement between the cooling flow channel and the heating flow channel and the aforementioned fan was rotated by the convection generated with the temperature difference of the aforementioned gas to generate electric power.
In such a device, however, the gas under high pressure in the cooling flow channel is cooled and contracted to be imparted with an increased specific gravity and moves by circulating the long-distance spiral flow channel to produce a centrifugal force so that the gas is pressed by the centrifugal force against the circumferential wall of the convective flow channel resulting in a great energy loss due to the frictional force generated thereby.
And, in order to construct a particularly large model of the device, use of a planar fin for heat exchange is necessarily accompanied by an increase in the distance of heat conduction per unit width with a great decrease in the rate of heat exchange and, in addition, the wall thickness of the cylinder wall must be increased and accompanied by a mass increase and causing a decrease in the power output due to a decrease in the rate of heat exchange with a medium coming from outside.
The present invention has been completed with an object, by overcoming such defects in a conventional convective power-generating device, to provide an improved method for conversion of a convectional energy to a power-generating energy with a high efficiency and a power-generating device for realization thereof.
The present invention provides, in a method in which an ascending gas flow channel and a descending gas flow channel are forcedly formed within a closed zone sealing a gas to generate a convolutional flow by the synergistic effect of both and a turbine is driven by the convolutional flow to generate electric power, a method in which the efficiency of power generation is increased by installing a cylindrical rotor between the aforementioned ascending gas flow channel and the descending gas flow channel and, if appropriate, between the ascending gas flow channel and a partition wall isolating the closed zone from outside as well as a device for realization thereof.